Earth VS Mars VS The Belt

Hola Readers, sorry for the lack of posting, but 110 hours in 8 days on an ambulance makes this little bookworm a wee bit exhausted.  I have however gotten some sleep and finished an awesome book so lets ramble for a bit shall we?  The book is Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey...which is actually the pen name of two authors by the names of Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck.  It is the first book in the Expanse series which is a pretty epic story in space.  My Mamma recommended it and as always she knows what I like.  Let's dive right into it shall we?  As always SPOILERS AHEAD!

The book is pretty much divided between the perspectives of Detective Miller and Captain Holden.  Each chapter switches between the two characters and is labeled as such and makes the reading experience very clear and concise.  Before all that though we start with a proloug in which we meet Julie.  Julie appears to be a prisoner and we watch her escape onto an empty ship where she makes a horrifying discovery of her entire crew and her captors turned into a weird pile of sludge and still living body parts...pretty blechy if you ask me.  She makes her escape and our story starts.  On Ceres station, in an area of space called The Belt, Detective Miller is tasked with finding Julie Mao, the daughter of a wealthy business family who has run away to join the OPA (Outer Planet Alliance) a loosely formed group that runs the gamet between an advocacy group and out and out terrorists.  Essentially people who live outside the inner planet area (mostly Mars and Earth) feel that they are discriminated against by the inner planet folk.  I could really write pages about the politics, but I think this is enough for the current story.  Detective Miller starts his research and he and the reader start to get to know Julie through various means as he searches for any sign of her.  Meanwhile on a ship called the Canterbury XO Holden takes a group of people to check out a ship called the Scopuli which is giving off a distress signal.  While exploring a mysterious force destroys the Canterbury leaving Holden and his crew (Naomi, Alex, Amos and Shed) as the remaining survivors.  Holden makes a discovery that the equipment used to send the fake distress signal was of Martian origin and he sends out a broadcast to the universe to that affect.  This essentially sets of a war between the OPA and Mars.  Holden and his crew then begin a series of moves and discoveries that eventually coincide with Detective Miller and his search for Julie.  Holden and his crew end up on a station that specializes in construction and is run by Fred Johnson, a former military hero turned OPA leader in a "commandeered" ship that the crew now call their own.  They ally with Fred as he is willing to be reasonable and utilize his resources to get to the bottom of the whole mystery.  Eventually the crew meets up with Detective Miller on Eros station where they finally find the body of Julie Mao...after a pretty bloody fire fight.  The body is growing weird growths of various shapes, sizes and textures.  After this discovery, the station goes into lock down and the inhabitants are herded into various "safe" zones.  Miller and Holden get separated and discover that the lock down is just a ploy to get the people gathered so that this mysterious group can experiment on them...without their knowledge of course.  After much stuff and things we finally discover that an Earth cooperation had discovered a block of ice embedded with an alien virus that was meant to rewrite DNA long before humans came along.  The cooperation wants to find a way to modify the virus to rewrite human DNA for various means.  The cooperation is ended, but they are still left with the problem of Eros.  Video and audio feeds from Eros reveal a horror show of growths, human remains acting in unnatural ways, and the station itself reacting to all attempts to destroy it.  Eventually Miller realizes that Julie is still alive in some form and that the virus is using her experiences and mind to do its dreadful work.  Miller boards the station and makes his way through the haunting and terrifying situation to find what is left of Julie and convinces her to crash the station on Venus, a planet that is still inhabitable by humans.  There the virus starts to rework the planet.  The rest of the human inhabited universe learns what is going on and goes back to some semblance of normalcy and Holden and his crew fly off to further adventures.  Obviously a very abbreviated version of a fairly complex book, but it's the gist of the story if nothing else.

World Building - This book is set apx 200 years in the future, in a combination of space, ships, stations and planets.  The authors did a fantastic job in setting up a complex and sweeping universe without boring the crap out of anybody.  The "science" of things felt plausible, which for me is always a plus as when things get tossed in with no sense it takes me out of the world.  It was not overly explained, nor was information withheld just to try and up the tension.  I felt like I had a good grasp of the asthetics, politics, and society of this books worlds. While reading it was easy to get immersed in the world as it unfolded in a natural and complete way.  World building gets an A+++++ from me :-)

Story - I loved the story put forth in this book.  With all of the complex politics and world building it would be very easy to loose the story in all of the details that the author could have piled on us.  Instead we get a clear, engaging mystery that has a beginning, middle and end while still leaving tons of room for future stories.  I am always impressed, especially in hard core sci fi and an author(s) can produce a readable story that is as fresh and original as this one.  I think the fact that the authors pulled in elements of noir, horror, mystery and a the perfect amount of humor really brought this story into the realm of a great read.  In the end we are left with an intriguing mystery that has just the right amount of twists and reveals that also lets us learn about the characters and the universe.  Good show guys good show.

Characters - The characters of this book were spot on.  Each main character was full developed with their own stories, belief's, moral code and attitude.  I felt like I could walk up to any of them and know exactly who they were.  The interactions between the characters was superb, with each interaction adding to the story and the picture of each character.  Miller and Holden's interactions were my favorite as the authors used them to show both sides of almost every situation.  They would have discussions and arguments and by the time they were done, you could at a minimum agree that they both had valid points.  I love this because it made the book feel balanced and fair and that the authors were not trying to shove any sort of agenda down your throats.  I also liked how every character stayed in character...what I mean is nobody did anything wildly out of character just to further the story.  Character rocked it.

Editing - The way the book was set up, with each chapter focusing on a specific character that we got to know very well was the perfect format for this book.  It was easy to follow, engaging and we got all the information we needed to understand exactly what was going on.  Sometimes in these epic sagas I have to flip back a couple pages to make sure I understand what I am reading, but this book flowed so smoothly.  Considering that two separate authors worked on this book, makes this feat even more amazing.  Go editors!

Language - The use of language in this book added a lot to the clarification and understanding of the various places in the universe.  For instance the Belters have their own lingo, stringing together words and phrases in a way that would only make sense to a native.  The closer to the inner planets you get the more refined the language becomes.  The characters also have a habit of giving names to things they have never seen before.  My personal favorite is vomit zombies, which is what they call the inhabitants of Eros station that have been infected by the alien virus.  It has got to be one of the most descriptive yet simple labels I have ever heard and I now use it in my everyday vernacular.  Each character also has a distinct voice that the authors wrote to reflect each particular individuals background and life.  Overall the language of this book was used to enhance the world building to a very effective degree.

Julie Mao - I'm gonna give this character her own space 'cause for all that she is only physically present in the book for a couple of pages, her existence is pretty much the whole basis for this book.  I found it brave and interesting that the actions of this girl, who made choices and decisions that any of us would have made are pretty much the catalyst for so many things in this book.  I also like how well we got to know her as a person and how the characters also got to know her in their own ways.  This is all very crucial near the end, when this feeling of knowing...and in Detective Millers case, loving Julie, leads to the understanding of how the virus is controlling the station.  Julie is very much a present character through out the entire story despite her pretty much being dead from the beginning. She is important to us not only in the beginning, but through out the book as she becomes part of each step of the mystery and in particular what she becomes to Detective Miller.  It is a great way to add a bit of an unusual twist to the story.

TV Show - The Syfy channel has attempted to make this into a tv show called The Expanse and in all honesty it's not bad.  My biggest issue with it is that after the clear and directness of the book, the tv show actually feels overly complicated...which is weird 'cause usually I'm upset because they over simplify things.  That being said the show really tried hard, and in most cases succeeded in showing us the various places in the universe and their disparate societies.  It is visually stunning and the casting is pretty well done.  I know they are trying to get the politic and such across...I just wish they had stuck to the cleaner format.  I will however be watching the next season so there is that.

Overall Impression - In case you hadn't figured it out, I really enjoyed this book.  It is everything I want a science fiction book...well any book really to be.  It avoided many of the pitfalls that these sweeping epics tend to fall into and left me with a very readable, very enjoyable, very good book.  I am desperately hoping this quality keeps up through out the series and will without a doubt be picking up the next book. I give this book 8 out of 10 textured fungus skewers and recommend it to any fan of science fiction, epics, or just a great combination of story, world building and character.
Happy Reading Everybody!

Cloned Blogger

Just so everybody knows, I was originally going to call this book incestuous necrophiliac, but decided I would probably get the wrong kind of audience :-)  What the heck am I talking about you ask?  This is the post where I ramble about Blackout, the third book in the Newsflesh trilogy by Mira Grant.  It has taken me a while to finally finish this series, but here we go.  As always SPOILERS AHEAD!

We left our group being chased by zombie virus infested mosquito's.  Florida has essentially fallen to the zombies and the country is once again in chaos.  Shaun has been bitten by a zombie, and has recovered, make him immune to the Kellis-Amberly virus.  He and his team decide to go and find out just what the heck happened with the mosquito's, as they suspect that they were released on purpose as a distraction from the news story the crew was going to break about the intentional killing of the reservoir condition people, and the attempt to infect people with a stable strain of the Kellis-Amberly virus.  If this is all a bit technical and confusing...well that's how I felt too :-).  Meanwhile Georgia wakes up in a secure CDC facility and learns that she is the most recent in a line of clones that the CDC has produced to try and control Shaun and his crew.  The plan is to make a stable version of Georgia and then mess with her brain enough to control her.  Part of this plan involves surgeries to make the clone Georgia more like the original as they cannot make a clone with the retinal reservoir condition the original Georgia had.  Eventually Georgia II as she calls herself is rescued and finally gets to meet up with Shaun.  Understandably the team, Shaun and even Georgia herself have some reservations about just how much of Georgia is left in the clone.  According to the scientists who created her Georgia II is a 97% match for the original.  After some questions and such they all end up at the White House where President Ryman and his vice-president, the former Newsie Rick attempt to use Georgia against Shaun and his team to repress the news that there will never be a cure for the zombie disease, just a treatment.  The CDC, apart from wanting to keep all the power, believe that the general public will freak if they know there is no cure.  They want Shaun and his team to essentially be the mouth pieces of the government, to only put out what the CDC wants them to, and they are willing to threaten everybody including the president to do it.  Luckily for our team, vice-president Rick has other plans and helps take down the CDC guy and with the help of some friends restores the truth.  The story breaks and everybody who didn't die goes back home to try and live the rest of their lives.  Georgia and Shaun reveal that they are lovers as well as brother and sister (hence the incestuous necrophiliac joke...it makes sense in the book, I promise) and disappear, presumably to Canada.  Life continues and our trilogy ends.

Where to start, where to start.  In the first book we had Georgia as our narrator, in the second book Shaun took over, in this book they switch back and forth.  I have always liked Georgia's voice better, I'm not sure if it is because Shaun is a bit more emotional and broody, or I prefer Georgia's more factual take, but in this book I liked her chapters best.   I also liked Georgia's chapters because they seemed to go somewhere, where Shaun and his team seemed to be going around in circles alot.   You definitely need to read the first two books to understand this book, and for a couple of things relating to why the CDC was after Shaun and his team I had to go back and look up.  For Shaun, I liked that the Georgia in his head did not go away when Georgia II showed up, showing us just how far gone he had been.  I do wonder however why when he saw the Georgia in his head manifest, he saw her without the retinal Kellis-Amberly when he had never seen her without it.  I liked following Georgia II as she learned she was one of several clones, was experimented on, and eventually came to grips with what she was.  I was not a huge fan of the whole lover thing between Georgia and Shaun, even though I saw it coming in the first book.  I know they are not technically related, but...I don't know I still found it a bit icky.  I liked the questions raised with both the scientific and emotional

ramifications of cloning.  I liked how they acknowledged that Georgia II was NOT Georgia, but for some purposes, especially for Shaun, she was good enough.  Overall I liked this book better then the second one, but not as much as the first.  Now that I have finished it, I would like to talk over the series as a whole.  I love the world the author has created, I like that it is not your typical survivalist, living in the woods, shooting zombies to survive type of world, but more of a continuing life with zombies, but I still want my Starbucks type of world.  It is still a unique take, and I really like it.  I also still appreciate the "science" (I put that in quotes, because it is fictional) that the author used to make the virus plausible to those of us who are super nit-picky.  I did find that the three books had a bit of lack of consistency as far as the story line went.  The first book was so focused on the campaign, that when it was barely acknowledged in the second book, and only really brought in at the end of the third book, it felt a bit disjointed.  I know the real story was about the virus conspiracy with the CDC, but that felt scattered to me as well. To me it felt as if each book was telling a different story without it being successfully tied together, but that may be just me.  I also felt that when dealing with Shaun and his crew, it took a really long time for them to get anywhere, it felt like they did a lot of hurry up and wait while the rest of the story caught up or progressed.  I did like the series as a whole, and think that the author is a superb writer.  I enjoyed all three books to varying degrees. I give this book a 7 out of 10 zombie clones and give the series as a whole 7 out of 10 virus tests.
What do you think about unrelated siblings getting it on?  What series have you read that is better when looked at as a whole?  Should I have tempted fate and used incestuous necrophiliac as a post title?